Craig Laurance Gidney

M. Ricket’s novel The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie is almost uncategorizable. It’s a magical realist character study/slice of life smalltown drama. The magic in the novel is more in the vibe than it is in concrete acts of wonder. There are hints of fabulism in the stories the characters tell one another, and when ghosts do appear, they are as natural as the sea air that drenches the small New England town of Bellefairie. The novel is the story of Quark, a gentle giant of a man who returns to his hometown to take care of his ornery sea captain father. Quark left town and never looked back, finding solace in his job as a taxidermist. The relationship between Quark and his father is contentious and complicated; Quark has gaps in his memory due to his traumatic upbringing, which is shrouded in tantalizing bits of mystery.

“Grief is a ship without a captain.”

Rickert tells the tale in the close third person point of view of Quark, who is a fascinating and occasionally infuriating person. His clumsiness and inability to read social cues is what drives the plot, as the grief-stricken man stumbles from one misunderstanding to another, as he pieces together the missing places in his memory. The odd taciturn locals call him ‘Frankenquark,’ first as a joke that then becomes sinister later in the plot. Rickert subtly suggests that Quark might be neurodivergent—adding another layer to his trauma. “Tragi-comic” comes to mind when thinking about the novel’s mood whiplash. Themes of generational trauma, isolation, and grief play across the pages. Rickert’s prose is lovely and crisp, full of seaside imagery and allusions to folktales and myths. The Shipbuilder of Bellfairie weds the quirky fabulism of Kelly Link with the dark whimsy of the best of Shirley Jackson.